


New, New Doctor

by charleythechameleon



Category: Doctor Who (2005), The Bold Type
Genre: F/F, I used american language, It hurt but was necessary, my uni blocked ao3 for adult content ooops so im using my phone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-13 07:18:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13565586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charleythechameleon/pseuds/charleythechameleon
Summary: Kat Edison's life is going nowhere. Until she meets a woman called the doctor.





	New, New Doctor

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on my tumblr post "list of non-British actors that should play the doctor that aren't bloody American" and then I got obsessed with the image of Nikohl Boosheri as the doctor and Aisha dee and the companion so please enjoy this Rose AU.

Kat’s life is monotonous. The alarm goes off at seven, she rolls over, grumbles her way out of bed and brushes her teeth before catching the ferry.

  
Scarlet’s assistant jobs pay piss-all, but they still expect her to turn up with perfect makeup and a thousand-dollar khakis because, hey, that’s the deal. She can’t complain though. Jacqueline turns her cheek when she, Jane and Sutton raid the fashion closet and Kat hears rumours that there’s a new ‘director of social media’ role opening up. The board want a ‘fresh face’ which Kat knows means someone young enough to not accidentally tweet their entire search history.

  
And that’s her entire life. Gossiping about job opportunities and hiding in the fashion closet until one night Alex waves the lottery money in front of her face. Kat lets Jane and Sutton go on ahead and grabs the plastic bag, sticking her tongue out as she trudges across to the elevator.

  
She taps her foot as the numbers decrease, muttering ‘come on’ at the machine and hoping desperately that she doesn’t have to catch the next ferry.

  
Wilson’s office is empty. She announces the lottery money to no avail, but hears a creak coming from the storage bay. The tiniest squeak then becomes a footstep, and she rolls her eyes. If she must chase the chief electrician through a sordid array of mannequins for the rest of her life, then she might as well quit here and now.

  
Half a second later these shop-window dummies are consuming her, leaving her backed up against a rusted pipe while they raise their forearm in attack. The whole thing is so ridiculous Kat doesn’t even react when the six foot plastic man in a striped shirt tries to kill her. All she notices is a hand in hers, and one word,

  
“Run!”

  
They run down corridors, not allowing Kat a second to breath before the woman snaps off one of the plastic arms with the lift doors, tosses it to Kat and announces the magazine has been overtaken by living plastic. Kat just wants to know who the hell this stranger thinks she is, dressed in a leather jacket and shimmery purple shirt that matches the hijab wrapped tightly around her head. Yet, she can’t help but smile when she says, “that makes sense, well done.”

  
That is the last of the niceties before she is shoved out the back door onto some street she doesn’t even recognise. The stranger cheerfully informs her that she is going to blow up scarlet magazine, wiggling a garish timer in her left hand before slamming the door shut. A second later she reappears, and asks her name.

  
“Kat.”

  
“Nice to meet you Kat, I’m The Doctor. Now run for your life.”

  
Kat jitters for a second, then remembers the ticking sound the gadget made. She rushes across the street, past a ‘police call box’ and stares in horror as the biggest publishing tower in New York goes up in flames.

  
*

  
Jane turns her to turn off her alarm. They trio start looking for jobs, and Sutton worries about going home since the insurance bail won’t pay a month’s rent. Alex drops in from time to time and disposes of the plastic arm The Doctor handed her. Everything becomes decidedly normal.

  
The Doctor turns up a week later, her little blue gadget having removed the nails from Kat’s door hinge. Kat refuses to let her go this time, telling Jane that she’s just come to question her about insurance while she dries her hair. The Doctor just mutters gibberish about the shape of her ‘new’ eyebrows and celeb culture while Kat makes coffee. She barely places the mugs on the coffee table when the same plastic arm that Alex chucked shoots across the room and latches itself onto her face. The Doctor disarms the thing, then swans off again.

  
Kat won’t let her go without a fight. The first time was a fluke, she just got caught up in the implication that her job was blown up. This time, she marches across the park while The Doctor informs her that she was an accident.

  
There’s a twinkle in every word she says. She smiles when Kat implies that the whole world revolves around her. Every little jibe turns her cheeks just a little bit redder, and she hopes her hand isn’t sweating when The Doctor takes it and tells her about the turn of the earth. She stares right past her, but the words feel intimate. Kat suspects that she has never told anyone these things before.

  
“Now forget me, Kat Edison.”

  
Oh, if only that were possible.

  
*

Kat spends the next week down a digital rabbit hole. The “doctor blue box” has been everywhere, with whole conspiracy threads dedicated to this same figure, the same features, scattered across time.

  
One redditer even proposes that nine different women have held the title. The first, an irascible Latina with wide brown glasses and a grey pixie cut that dressed in Edwardian suits. The second, a tiny white girl with a thick brown bob and a sparkly purple catsuit. The redhead apparently served the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce as their scientific advisor before being replaced by a waistcoat sporting brunette. The blonde one wears bright yellow suspenders and apparently started the great fire of London, while the arrogant girl with a vibrant afro and even more audacious purple shoulder pads apparently served Queen Mary the first of England. Kat just laughs at the young girl with a baseball bat and the Indian woman dressed in another Edwardian suit.

  
Sutton accuses her of being obsessed and invites the gang out for dinner alongside Alex, whom looks decidedly shinier than usual.

  
*

  
Out of all the horrific things Kat has seen in her lifetime, a cork being fired into, then absorbed by her best male friend’s head, before he chewed it up and spat it out must top the list. Of course, it’s The Doctor again, yanking off plastic Alex’s head and sauntering off into her blue box while the headless copy bashes the door down.

  
Reluctantly, Kat eventually follows her in, but not after a quick three-sixty of the box’s definitely wooden exterior. She swallows, and lists the obvious.

  
“It’s bigger on the inside than outside.”

  
“Yep.”

  
“It’s alien.”

  
“Yep.”

  
“Are you alien?”

  
“Yes.”

  
The Doctor proves this fact by her confusion when Kat tears up at the prospect of Alex’s death. She appears too preoccupied by standing in her spaceship and announces how amazing she is. The head melts, and the pair end up parked in front of the statue of liberty while the Doctor garbles about a transmitter.

  
“Can I ask you a personal question.” Kat says, cutting The Doctor out of her state.

  
“Yes.” She replied, an eyebrow quirked.

  
“Why do you wear the hijab if you’re an alien?”

  
“I chose to wear the hijab. It does not oppress me.” The Doctor simply replies, and then they’re running again, after Kat points out that the flame is a perfect transmitter.

  
She finds Alex, alive and terrified, chained up against a wall. A big vat of an orange plastic face lies in the base of the building, squirming and splattering red hot goo across the metal furnishings.

  
The Doctor swaggers up, her usual pompous self, and asks if she is addressing the consciousness. This results in two plastic dummies restraining her due to presence of anti-plastic in her pocket. Despite her protests, the invasion begins, and Kat hurriedly phones Jane in an attempt to stop her midnight shopping.

  
Everything is crumbling around her, and Kat spots an unshackled chain dangling from the wall. She tells Alex that she has no money, she didn’t even pick up her diploma, and since Scarlet’s gone under now she has no future. But, she did get to the under-seven’s gymnastics final. She got the bronze.

  
God, it’s nuts. She kicks the plastic man in the face, and The Doctor hurtles another into the vat, the anti-plastic tumbling in afterward. The orange face howls, swirling about in the dish, white strips crackling across its surface.

  
The Doctor hurries them into the TARDIS and they reappear at the foot of Kat’s apartment complex. Jane phones back, and Kat giggles at her rants of ‘don’t go outside’ before hanging up. Alex is terrified, and points accusingly at The Doctor.

  
The Doctor ignores him, standing in the doorway of her magic box, and offers Kat the chance to go anywhere. Kat’s eyes prick. She really wants to go. But she can’t. As she says this, it feels like her lips betrayed her.

  
The box disappears. Kat picks Alex up, ready to retreat.

  
Then the whine returns.

  
“Did I also mention it also travels in time?”

  
Kat grins, plants a kiss on Alex’s cheek and runs off.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on tumblr @politicalprocrastinator.tumblr.com  
> Also I'm on youtube @charleythechameleon
> 
> And a really nerdy note, the list of actors that played previous doctors was in my head Rita Moreno as one, then I swapped a few actors with their companions (Zoe as 2, Liz as 3, Sarah Jane as 4, Ace as 7 and Anji as 8) then I couldn't resist Jodie Whittaker as 5, Gugu Mbatha-Raw (dressed in her San Junipero outfit) as 6.


End file.
